Taking Back What Was Once Lost

Posts Tagged ‘brick walls’

My friend Aaron calls them artificial. They can also be called self-imposed brick walls. We say this to mean we have labelled something a brick wall that really isn’t a brick wall. We call them that even though we haven’t done our due diligence in terms of careful research. Consider these examples:

We declare the brick wall of not being able to find an ancestor in a census year but we haven’t tried multiple spellings and pronunciations,
haven’t used wildcard searches,
haven’t searched surrounding counties,
haven’t searched other census websites other than Ancestry,
haven’t considered a migration out of state and biggest of all—
haven’t done a line-by-line search in the district or county we expect to find them in.

We declare a brick wall, but we have only been to one or two repositories in person, or worse still, have done all our research online.We declare a brick wall, but have used books and websites to collect information without ordering and examining firsthand the original record.We declare a brick wall, but we’ve only searched 2 or 3 TYPES of records such as census records, vital records and the “easy” databases on Ancestry (like World War I draft cards). We haven’t even tried to search land records, court records, church records, maps, city directories, probate records, newspapers and other record sets.We declare a brick wall, but we’ve only been searching for our direct ancestor and maybe his wife and children. We have not expanded to the group (or “cluster”) of people that were associated with our ancestors and would significantly increase our chances for success.We declare a brick wall, after jumping back several generations, and not doing extensive research within each generation on all the siblings and children of each sibling.

We declare a brick wall, but we’re wearing cultural blinders. We aren’t considering that people may have had children outside of or before marriage, or that they may appear in the records as a different race.We declare a brick wall, but have never actually analyzed and correlated the evidence that we DO have. In fact, we don’t know how to evaluate the evidence. We believe everything we see in print is factual, accurate and true. If two records give conflicting information, we have no idea which one is correct.We declare a brick wall, and have never tried to find living descendants of any of the family members.We declare a brick wall, but never stopped to consider our ancestor may have had multiple marriages. We also never actually verified the mother of each child separately from the father.We declare a brick wall, but have never expanded our search to less common but potentially valuable records stored onsite at universities, historical and genealogical societies. And-

(my personal favorite)We declare a brick wall, but have never actually read a book on genealogy methodology or any of the thousands of teaching articles published in genealogy journals. We have progressed mainly by asking others what to do next instead of taking the time to learn ourselves “what to do next.”

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Genealogy is a learned skill and a profession with defined standards. You get good at it by practice and by education. I define “good” as using best practices for careful research and ultimately being able to discern clues that don’t jump off the page. That’s what will set you apart from when you were a beginner. I look at evidence I gathered in earlier years and see things now I couldn’t possibly see then. You have to progress away from “looking up” people in databases and learn how to “look into” people’s lives, which is a different animal altogether.

I have been guilty of many of these artificial brick walls myself and have had to overcome my special tendency to declare someone dead when I can’t find them;) But I’ve gotten better over the years by constantly educating myself and learning about methodology and resources. I hope you will too. Tell me in the comments, which artificial brick walls you have been guilty of?

The Search For Roots

I've been researching my ancestors for 15 years now, and the journey is just as exciting as when I first began. Come along with me as I share my triumphs, crash into brick walls, meet new cousins and share a few tips I've picked up along the way;)
Be sure to click on the other tabs at the top of the page to view my family research: Maternal Ancestors and Paternal Ancestors.

Favorite Family History Quotes

"Call it a clan, call it a network, all it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one"- Jane Howard

"Friends are God's apologies for relations."-Hugh Kingsmill

"No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?"-Elbert Hubbard

"Families are like fudge; mostly sweet with a few nuts."-Unknown

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you might as well make it dance!"-Unknown

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city;)"-George Burns

"Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl. No superior alternative has yet been found."-Winston Churchill

"The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never ever introduce yourself to had life not done it for you."-Kendall Hailey

"If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people."-Thich Nhat Hanh